


Mi Mancherai

by Naomida



Series: Fire Meet Gasoline [17]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:14:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23155399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naomida/pseuds/Naomida
Summary: She was so tired of it all. All she had wanted was to repay Khadgar for all that he had done to her, and now there she was, being followed by mysterious elves, joining a pirate crew to try and save the planet, looking for her missing husband who may or may not have been attacked by the same elf that was stalking her.
Series: Fire Meet Gasoline [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/655244
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	Mi Mancherai

Lidya had always been great at teleportation, for some reason; and there was no trick to it. She was just really good at bending space to her will to travel through it easily.

A trick she had recently learned though was that with her new found powers she could teleport a ship and its entire crew over a huge distance without breaking a sweat, and while the pirates abroad said ship weren’t always happy about it – those guys sure _loved_ to sail – it made them all gain so much time compared to their enemies.

It was because of those two facts that Lidya could immediately tell, when she teleported everyone that morning, that they had an unsuspecting traveler with them. She closed her eyes, trying to feel for some magic or Light, but came up with nothing, not that it surprised her. Ravandwyr never sneaked up on her like that.

It couldn’t have been another pirate, here to be recruited or to try his hand at killing the Howlis brothers – no pirate ever was this discreet.

In fact, it couldn’t even have been any spy, because Lidya had gotten  _very_ good at sensing and stopping them, those past few weeks.

Mathias Shaw then.

She didn’t know if she was ready for that fight, but it seemed like the choice wasn’t hers anymore, so she simply gave a smile to Bobby, and went to the empty Captain’s cabin.

Most of the space was taken by the largest desk they had found that could be put inside the small room, and it was covered in books and maps and various writing tools.  The walls were also covered in books and parchments, and the three chairs that had fit in there were pushed against the wall next to the door, out of the way. It wasn’t a good room to fight – too many object getting in the way, too many flammable ones at that. Thankfully the brothers had taken down the hammock they slept in, so at least she wouldn’t get her head caught in one.

It wasn’t ideal, but it had to do, and she stepped fully into the room and locked the door behind her.

“Good morning,” she said, leaning back on the door and crossing her arms.

Shaw appeared in front of her just a heartbeat later, facing her on the other side of the desk, leaning with his hands on it as he looked up from a map to meet her eyes.

“Archmage,” he said.

She smirked, because he would be calling her by her new title if he had known about it – which was excellent news. She wanted to keep it a surprise for everyone that wasn’t in the Tirisgarde for now. Knowledge was power.

“Spymaster,” she replied, raising an eyebrow. “Fancy seeing you here, I don’t remember you joining my crew.”

“Cut the crap,” he replied, voice lower than usual, like he had just choked on something or hadn’t been talking in a few days. “The High King is alive.”

“And how would you know that?” she asked, straightening up, all the muscles in her back tensing suddenly. She hadn’t been expecting that – had thought he would maybe talk about her little visit to Anduin, three weeks prior, or all the work she had been doing in the various azerite mines around the world.

“I was here,” he replied, looking deep into her eyes, “when it all happened.”

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


A  long time ago, back when Mathias had just been a spy working for the crown under the orders of the Spymaster, his grandmother, he had met a priestess. She had worked for the SI:7, Mathias had been her contact, and the truth of the matter was that he had met her maybe once in his life. They had had to exchange letters frequently though, and one thing had lead to another, and Mathias’ heart had picked up every time he had found himself with her letters between his hands.

She had been deep in cover in the Scarlet Crusade and had gone silent the day Acherus had appeared in the Western Plaguelands sky.

He had thought her dead, had let himself feel sad for all of an hour, before going back to work. It was a hard war, in Northrend, and he had just been named Spymaster. There was a lot weighting down on him, and he didn’t have time for feelings.

The priestess hadn’t care for that, because she had miraculously reappeared, a few months later. She had gone with the rest of the Crusade to Northrend too.

Everything that had happened after that was messy, and slightly toxic if he was being honest with himself, but it hadn’t mattered when Mathias had been in need of a healer.

He had turned to her, because she was one of the few people in this world that she trusted that much.

And it had been a mistake.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


“There were assassins after him. It had been going on since you all left for Argus. I advised him against telling you, and he agreed that it was the best course of action while we didn’t know who was coming after him and for what reasons.”

Lidya gritted her teeth and planted her nails in her arms. It was too late to get mad at Varian, but she couldn’t help herself.

“It was easy to keep them at bay while in the Keep, or in Stormwind, but when it was clear that he needed to go to Darkshore we knew it would get harder, and he needed to be even more careful than usual, which is why I went with him. No one knew about that plan, except maybe his friend Valeera.”

“What happened?” she asked, her voice too tight.

“They got him _during_ the teleportation. They stabbed him, he was already bleeding out when we arrived. I didn’t know this was possible.”

Lidya was pretty sure it wasn’t.  It would take too much planning, and it was dangerous. No one was even fast enough to be able to stab someone while in teleportation.

It wasn’t possible.

She pursed her lips instead of saying anything.

“I didn’t know what to do, frankly, so I took him to a healer that I _knew_ could be trusted.”

For a second, Mathias looked away, a haunted look crossing his face.

“They found us there. They killed her, and I stayed back to fight them off and give him time to run.”

“You don’t think they got him.”

Mathias shook his head and bit down on lower lip.

“He had a hearthstone with him, I’m pretty sure he used it. It took me maybe ten minutes to get rid of the assassins, and I immediately went after him, but all I could find was his sword.”

Lidya’s heart skipped a beat at that. Varian would  _never_ leave Shala’mayne behind.

“His steps just disappeared?”

“Like he had teleported himself away, but I checked and the hearthstone wasn’t used.”

“And you don’t think it could have been those assassins?”

He shook his head. “They just wanted him dead, they didn’t seem to care about leaving the body behind or not.”

Lidya sat down on one of the chairs instead of replying, blinking down at her knees, feeling numb.

“He’s alive,” she announced without looking up. “We got married in front of the Light, I would know if he died.”

The revelation was met with silence, but when she chanced a look up she could see the surprise in Mathias’ eyes, along with something that could have been sympathy.

“Someone wants him out of the equation,” said Mathias after a long pause.

“People have been going after me.”

That had him frown.

“Horde, Alliance, others.”

“Do you know why?”

She shrugged a shoulder. No one knew yet that she was the Guardian now, and while she wasn’t exactly making it a secret that she was against this war, the two armies were too busy fighting each other to really care about her. The Ashvane Company and other pirate crews should have been the only ones coming after her.

“Listen,” said Shaw, finally moving to join her on a chair. He put his elbows on his lap and leaned close to her, speaking in a low voice, “those weren’t simple assassins, okay? I saw them take down one of the strongest priestess I’ve ever met, and they’ve managed to get to him although I was his protection.”

“He’s still alive though, so they failed.”

M athias just looked at her for a moment.

“You think someone else got to him?”

“I think someone knew what was happening and took him away.”

“Who?”

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


A week before she had left for Suramar, Lidya had spent an afternoon hiding in the Keep’s gardens, sitting under a tree by the peaceblooms.

Varian, of course, had found her and sat down next to her without saying a word, his shoulder against hers while the soft wind made the smell of all the flowers drift to them.

“I did say I would keep you in my castle after the war,” he had said after a while, a soft smile floating on his face as she had met his eyes.

He had looked tired, which made sense now that she thought back on it and knew that at the time goblins were already making azerite weapons for the Horde.

She hadn’t seen that at the time though, so instead of saying anything she had simply smiled back and had leaned her head on his shoulder.

“You did.”

“How is it going for you?”

“It’s nice to relax but I also feel like I’m going crazy.”

Not being so preoccupied by the constant threat of war had freed up a lot of mental space for her, and there were a lot of things she had pushed to the back of her mind that were now coming back. One of them being the counterspell she had ended up finding in Suramar. Others being more about her, or her husband, or her other friends.

Mostly about her and her husband though.

Nothing had officially changed, although it was clear to about absolutely everyone that they were together and that Lidya was staying at the Keep with him, but no one had mentioned it yet — starting with Lidya. It wasn’t like she was feeling insecure about it or anything — they had gotten married in front of the Light and there was nothing stronger than that in the book — but it still felt like something was still missing, and she knew that despite everything Varian was attached to traditions.

The question was bound to come up, at some point.

And in truth, she couldn’t wait for that moment.

She wanted to marry him again, in front of everyone, and be the one to throw a party for once.

“I’m sure you’ll soon find something to keep you busy,” he replied, kissing the top of her head.

Lidya smiled as he wrapped an arm around her, and she got more comfortable against his side, the idea of napping like this suddenly warming up to her.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


“The question isn’t who,” said Lidya. The gardens and the idea of a big wedding were gone now, and it hurt, but she couldn’t dwell on that. Forward, always. “But why. Why would someone want to kill him, and why would someone want to save him?”

Their eyes met, and Lidya was surprised at how easily she could read Mathias in this moment. He had put his walls down, which made her panic slightly. She knew what it represented, for him to come here to her and tell her everything, for him to ask for her help and advice.

The situation was dire, but still.

“We know very well why someone would want to take him out.”

Lidya nodded, still looking into his eyes, a strange idea crossing her mind. She could see that Mathias had gotten the same one, but none of them wanted to say it out loud.

“But why save him?” Lidya still asked, frowning slightly, chest hurting like it always did when it came to Varian recently.

“He was taken out of the equation but not killed. So everything happens like the assassins want it to, but Varian will be brought back in the end? Or is he bait?”

“Or both?”

Mathias looked away, his right hand coming up to hold his chin, and it was easy to see the way his mind was running, thinking up of solutions and hypothesis and dismissing them at a crazy pace.

“I need to investigate more,” he finally said, looking back at her, his walks back up and his face and eyes unreadable.

Lidya nodded, and got up when he did.

“I’m sorry for your friend,” she said, and Mathias paused at that.

He pursed his lips and gave her a curt nod.

“I apologize for everything that happened in Stormwind,” he replied.

Lidya nodded back, and started casting a portal.

“You won’t be able to swim your way back from here,” she said when he raised a questioning eyebrow at her, and he crossed the portal without hesitation or another word.

They hadn’t said that they would be in contact or ever talk about it again, but it went without saying.

It felt strange to know he was on her side. Not good, but it was a bit of a relief. It didn’t mean the Alliance would help her in any way, or that she would join them in the war, but to know that the faction she had fought most of her life for wasn’t her enemy was the best news she could get in this moment, and she savored it.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


The Clawed Widow arrived off the coast of Vol’dun in the early evening, and Lidya let the Howlis brothers deal with the crew and recon. The azerite mine was pretty huge, and it would take Lidya a few days to make her way in there and take out everyone of importance. She was more focused on the big picture there.

She barely knew anything about the region. It was a desert, and it was dangerous, and that was all she had managed to gather. No one in Freehold had been particularly chatty, and the only ones who had been had advised her against going there, and had said that all who went never came back.

She hadn’t been just anyone in a while, so she was confident in her ability to go a little off the roads and still find her way back.

“When will you start?” asked Jes, his voice a low rumble in the night.

“Tomorrow at dawn. I heard it gets really hot here during the day.”

“And really dangerous at night,” replied the captain, looking down at her. “Be careful out there. You’re a better pirate than I thought you would be and it would be a shame if the crew lost you.”

She smiled and clasped his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, you’re not getting rid of me this easily.”

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


Lidya had been too quick to talk. As usual.

She had run into the Warlord, who had nodded a quick hello as he was fighting off a dozen of skeleton, and Lidya had helped him without thinking. His Common was about as good as Lidya’s Orcish, so they mostly kept quiet and just worked on killing the troll skeletons — which Lidya didn’t even understand, but the ruins they were in felt weird, like a sick cloud of magic was wrapped around it and keeping everyone in place.

Maledictions were bad like that.

She stuck around while the Warlord talked with another skeleton that seemed more friendly, and followed him when he started killing more enemies.

In fact, she only left when the orc started getting on a boat with that skeleton and a handful of others. She had no idea what was going on, and she didn’t intend on finding out. She simply bid her goodbye, and gave a few health potions to the orc who smiled at it.

They weren’t friends — in fact they barely knew each other — but he had helped her when the Eye of Aman’thul had brought her back from the dead, and that wasn’t something that was easily forgotten.

Following this little adventure Lidya decided to go North, wherever her feet would take her.

As usual, trouble found her.

“My name is Nira,” announced trouble, a bloody dagger in hand, squinting up at Lidya in the late morning sun. “What are you?”

“I’m a human. Lidya. What are _you_?”

“I’m a Vulpera, of course,” replied Nira, shrugging a shoulder and bending down to wipe her blade on the dead troll’s shirt.

There were three more bodies that Lidya had taken care of, scattered on the sand around them. Vultures were already circling above them in the sky, waiting to strike.

It was making Lidya uneasy.

“Why were they after you?”

“Oh you know,” replied the vulpera, looking through the troll’s pockets and clicking her tongue when she found nothing, “I was just trying to do some business but as usually those _brutes_ … ah!” she took out a small pouch from the next troll’s belt, opened it and looked inside. “That’s nice,” she said, the pouch immediately disappearing under the numerous clothes wrapped around her small body. “Those brutes don’t know a good business deal when it hits them in the back with a dagger,” she went on, looking up at Lidya and giving her a toothy grin.

That was a lot of sharp teeth.

Lidya grinned right back.

“What about you?” she asked after going over to another body.

“Just walking around, wondering what all the hype about Vol’dun is all about.”

Nira paused, and looked at Lidya over her shoulder.

“You’re one of those adventurers I’ve been hearing about.”

“I guess, yeah.”

“Good. I have a job for you.”

It wasn’t a good idea and Lidya knew it well, but she was also curious and had literally nothing else to do.

“I’m listening.”

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


“So I have a girlfriend, right,” said Nira as she poured some type of tea into a huge wooden glass. She was raising the teapot as she poured, making froth appear in the glass, and Lidya looked at the liquid, suddenly feeling thirsty despite not being bothered by the scorching heat, being a frost mage and all that. “And this girlfriend of mine, she’s like, super badass. So, of course when she heard about those idiots mining some kind of very dangerous and sought after... _thing_ , she decided to go see for herself what that was all about, and if she could get some to trade for some juicy foods or something.”

Lidya paused as the glass was pushed into her hands, looking at the vulpera with curiosity.

“Your girlfriend went to the Ashvane mine?”

Nira nodded as she poured herself some tea.

“She did. And was taken prisoner. I barely escaped myself.”

“You want to free her, I guess.”

“Yes, and see what the sand is going on there. A lot of people have been mysteriously disappearing, this side of the dunes, and we can all guess what’s been happening.”

Lidya took a sip of the tea – it was very sweet, and the heat felt amazing – and nodded.

“No one loves forced work.”

“And no one loves idiots,” replied Nisa, smiling as she bumped her glass against Lidya’s and took a sip. “So, you look strong and like you know what you’re doing. Will you help me? I can pay.”

“I don’t want gold,” replied Lidya, smiling when Nisa’s eyes got sharper at this. “I want what they have been mining.”

The vulpera thought about it for a second, her ears moving as if there was wind – but there was none, just the scorching heat in the blue sky, and all that sand everywhere. Lidya had spent enough times with elves to know that moving ears meant something, but she couldn’t tell what yet in the case of a vulpera, so she simply sipped her tea as she waited.

“Alright,” finally said Nira. “ _But_ , I get to keep everything else that I may find.”

“Sure,” she replied with a smile.

They shook hands on it, and finished their tea.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


Attacking such a huge mine with a handful of pirates and one handy vulpera wasn’t the easiest of tasks. The Ashvane employees had the higher ground, with their back to the mountain and a clear view of the sea, and Lidya didn’t want to risk the Clawed Widow so attacking by the sea was out of the question for now.

It meant that they needed to get creative, which thankfully wasn’t too hard with such a mixed bunch. The Ashvane people were pirates too, so killing a few of them and putting her own pirates in their uniforms wasn’t too hard, and no one blinked twice at them.

As for Nira and her, Lidya hesitated for a while between pretending that _both_ of them were prisoners, or only Nira. In the end, Lidya decided to go with the option that would make it easier for her to get to the forced workers and passed as one too.

For a few days she worked in the mine, absorbing frankly _insane_ amounts of azerite into her Heart, and wondering if maybe just staying there until the mine ran dry wasn’t a better idea than everything else she had thought about before, but the situation quickly changed when she woke up after eight days and came face to face with two big tusks framing a light blue face.

“Hey mon,” said the troll, and Lidya smiled and accepted his hand to get up on her feet.

She knew him from the Broken Shore, and as she looked over his shoulder she met the Warlord’s eyes, who gave her a small nod.

“What are you doing here?” asked the blood elf with them, retying her hair into a high ponytail. Her eyes were strikingly gold, and it would never stop making Lidya feel weird.

“Investigating,” she replied in the same language she had been addressed in, Thalassian. “What about you?”

“Stopping these idiots,” she said, rolling her eyes, before grabbing the big sword on her back and striding out of the little cave all the workers slept in.

Lidya rolled her eyes too, and followed the three Horde members out, to find _a lot_ of bodies scattered around. Most of the workers had been freed, and she could see Nira hugging another vulpera a few meters away. Her men were, thankfully, unhurt and killing the few last Ashvane members, their uniforms having been taken off.

“You shouldn’t stay here,” said the elf, squinting out at the sea they could see from where they were standing, “not for long at least. The Horde is moving fast.”

“I’m faster.”

She smiled and turned to look at Lidya. “I know what you did, you know? About that sword of yours. You gave it back when you could have just kept it.”

“Yeah... I guess some things are more important than power.”

The elf bowed her head at that. “What happened was... unplanned and quite honestly terrible, but not all of us are monsters, and not all of us will kill you on sight.”

“That’s good to know.”

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


Lidya had to take a detour to Magni to give him a report on everything that she had seen – and if she was being honest with herself it was a little worrying that the Ashvane Trading Company was mining so much so fast. Something was going on, but she couldn’t give any hypothesis yet, she needed more information first, and she told the Watcher exactly that. He didn’t like it any more than Lidya, and promised to keep her up to date as soon as he found something.

With this done, Lidya went back to Dalaran.

She didn’t have to think about it, just casting her teleportation spell. Going from point A to point B. It was easy – it was one of the first thing she had mastered – which was why, when a shadow passed her by in the flash of the teleportation, she first didn’t even realize what was going on.

She arrived in the Hall of the Guardian, and immediately raised her ice barrier up, heart beating wildly.

It was useless to look around, she knew that, but she still couldn’t help herself. The Hall was empty and calm – everyone was on missions all over Azeroth – and it only served to make her more anxious. Shaw was right then, they had gotten Varian during the teleportation.

She didn’t know what to do, so after a few seconds, she teleported herself again to Azsuna.

There was the shadow again, but it was farther away, and the second she arrived Lidya teleported herself back to Dalaran, trying to catch a better look.

It was an elf.

She went back to Azsuna, catching another glimpse – pale skin, blue eyes – before going back again to Dalaran – long fiery hair.

She stopped for a second, trying to think, feeling a little dizzy from all this moving around. She knew she wouldn’t be able to catch him, not with how fast he was, and she had no idea how he was even able to track her like that.

She teleported herself to the first place she could think of – the beach where she had married Varian, in Nagrand, Draenor – and was surprised to find that he did not follow this time.

He was back when she got to Dalaran again.

She joined her office in quick strides, feeling slightly better when nothing strange happened while she used the transportation orb, and sat at her desk without losing time, starting to look through the Guardian’s spellbook.

There must have been something in there to help her.

It took a while – about two hours, to be exact – but she found some sort of counterspell that, with some modifications, could have been useful. She just needed to test it first – and to do the actual modifications even before that – and as she sat back in her chair and she looked down at the book, she couldn’t help but feel panic rise up in her chest.

She was so tired of it all. All she had wanted was to repay Khadgar for all that he had done to her, and now there she was, being followed by mysterious elves, joining a pirate crew to try and save the planet, looking for her missing husband who may or may not have been attacked by the same elf that was stalking her.

Her best friend was gone, her mentor wanted nothing to do with her, and she knew she was already putting too much pressure on Ravandwyr and Vargoth, she couldn’t possibly add any more to their plate.

She was by herself on this one.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


It took a while to find him, and she only did because she knew the Broken Isles by heart after spending so much time there, but finding him wasn’t the end of it, because then she also had to sit down more and _really_ think about her intentions with him.

She had worked with him, an entire lifetime ago.  They had been fighting a common enemy back then, but then everything had changed – the enemy had become an ally, and he had become an enemy of her friends. He had no reason to help her, and even if he did agree, there was no guarantee he would even succeed – not against an enemy that was so strong – but Lidya was lost, feeling lonely, and she was quite frankly running out of ideas.

Mathias Shaw had sent her a very curt letter telling her, in about five words, that he was grasping at straws. Draerin hadn’t answered the message she had sent and had refused to speak to Ravandwyr, and Magni had disappeared off who-knew-where about three weeks prior.

Lidya was, in a word, desperate.

She also wasn’t willing to abandon hope just yet. She hadn’t tried everything yet, and wouldn’t stop even if she did, if she was being honest with herself, and so there she was.

He had spotted her the second she had teleported herself in front of the building, she knew, and he probably was waiting for her to do something.

Breathing out slowly, Lidya took a step into the building, and looked up at the destroyed ceiling, seeing the sky. It wasn’t a great place to live, but she had also recently been on the run herself, so she understood that comfort had to be sacrificed sometimes, but still. It seemed a bit much, even for someone like him.

“What do you want?” he asked, his voice coming from somewhere down, and Lidya realized with surprise that a huge hole had been dug under the rug.

There were no s tairs to go down the hole , but she guessed people with wings didn’t really need them, so she jumped into the hole and slowed her fall with magic, landing softly about twenty meters down, into a  _very badly_ lit cave, that already looked more like a home than the rest.

There were tapestries everywhere, with demonic writing made in ink laced with fel, but she decided to focus on the elf who had his back to her instead. He was sitting on what had to be the bed, with about two dozens skins and pillows surrounding him,  and was focused on sharpening a glaive.

Lidya swallowed through the knot forming in her throat, a strange feeling taking over her.

“Altruis,” she said when he didn’t move to look at her.

“What do you want?”

“I need you to find Varian Wrynn for me.”

H e made a sound, a small groan at the back of his throat that sounded too guttural to be anything other than some demonic noise, and Lidya had a sudden flashback of that time on Argus Ilana had lost control of her demon.

It would be extremely easy, for Altruis to kill her right in this moment, and no one would be the wiser, but Lidya had decided that it was a risk worth taking – had decided that she believed in him enough to risk coming here all alone without telling anyone.

“Impossible,” he said after a while, putting down what he was holding and turning just slightly to look at her over his shoulder.

He wasn’t wearing any blindfold, but the sick-green glow of his eyes had grown familiar by now, and it was an actually welcomed sight.

Lidya would never admit it out loud to anyone, but she missed the Illidari more than anyone else, except for Varian.

“I’ll protect you from the Alliance and the Horde if that’s–”

“You don’t understand,” he cut her, his mouth a worried line, “it’s impossible for me to find him.”

“Why do you say that?” she frowned, taking a step in his direction.

“I already tried,” he replied, looking away.

F or a second, Lidya was too surprised to react.

“Why…?” she started, but his sharp gaze cut her off.

“I’m not stupid, and I’m not too out of the loop, even here away from everything. He can put an end to this war, but he’s gone now. Too far for me to reach. I’ve looked everywhere. There’s only one hunter that could find him, and we both know she’s unreachable, _to_ _the_ _both of us_.”

Lidya bit down on her lips, a sharp pain in her chest,  only feeling slightly better that Altruis was managing to look even more miserable than she felt.

She couldn’t imagine, what it was like to be the only demon hunter left on Azeroth, to have been cut out and rejected by all the other people that were like him – but she also knew it was all for a good reason. Altruis had gone against them, had actively worked for their downfall, along with Lidya, and while the Illidari had kind of understood her actions, they couldn’t forgive nor forget Altruis.

She understood them, but still felt bad for him.

“You don’t have to stay here,” she said after a while, meeting his eyes again and taking a step in his direction. “You couldn’t find him alone, but I have people with me, I have resources. I have knowledge.”

“I’m not a team player.”

“We’ve worked together in the past, and I can’t imagine that whatever you’re doing nowadays is much better or more interesting than what I’m offering.”

He frowned, and seemed to consider it for a while.

“I’m my own boss.”

Lidya nodded, already used to that song and dance of the Illidari’s, and couldn’t help a slight smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“Of course. I only boss around the Tirisgarde, but we could be associates.”

He nodded at the term.

“I have a pirate crew, and a ship, and a place in Dalaran, if you want.”

“I just want a prey to hunt.”

It sounded like the admission was costing him, and Lidya pretended not to understand the underlying meaning to that – she didn’t have time to feel any more bad for him than she already did, and she thought for a second that if she ever crossed path with Ilana or Kayn again, then she’d have to talk to them about it.

For now though, there was no Illidari. Only a lonely demon hunter that was one of the most valuable asset she could get, and a war they both wanted to end.

“I have more preys than I know what to do with.”

He nodded, just once, before grabbing his glaive and getting up. “Let’s go then.”

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


“I don’t like this,” gritted Jes between his teeth.

“I _love_ him!” exclaimed Bobby at the same time, grinning wildly while the two brothers and Lidya watched as Altruis cut through a _very large_ group of sethraks.

To be truthful, Lidya was getting worried, looking at the way Altruis looked almost hungry for more kills, and she wondered how long it had been for him since the last time he had really fought an enemy.  The war against the Legion did felt like it was a long time ago, but it had barely been a few months, and surely he had managed to find some things to kill in the mean time, right?

She hoped she hadn’t made a huge mistake by bringing him back with her to her crew, although considering the way he was currently annihilating their enemies all by himself, it was hard to consider his recruitment as a failure.

“How many other friends like that do you have?” asked Bobby after a while – the serpent-men were still attacking, trying different tactics, and Altruis was happily going through them like they were nothing.

“Honestly? A whole army, but this one is the only one available.”

“Eh! Better than nothing, I guess,” replied Bobby, getting his daggers out and licking his lips.

Lidya chuckled when he threw himself into the fight barely a second later, but she stayed back with Jes.

Having a demon hunter on her side was nice, but that didn’t help with any of her problems. She had managed to arrange a secret meeting with Alleria and Turalyon, and she needed to find where Magni had disappeared to, but before that she needed to wrap things up in Vol’dun, to make sure Vargoth was still alive where she had left him in Arathi, to get in touch with at least one spy that could tell her something, anything, and even before all of that she needed to make sure that the elf that had been following her during her every teleportation couldn’t get close.

Khadgar and Draerin could have helped her tremendously with that, but they hadn’t been in Draerin’s cottage, nor in Khadgar’s chambers or his tower in Zangarra or even Karazhan.

They had disappeared off into nature, and she knew that it would take too much effort to find them if they didn’t want her to, so she had decided to focus on the most important tasks at hand for now, and worry about them later.

She had sent Meryl to Karazhan to do some research in the library, and she knew that he was going to find useful information for the Tirisgarde, and for now that would have to do. The fights to come were promising to be long, hard and extremely tiring, and she was going to take any win she could get and be grateful for them.

As for now, the Sethrak doubled in numbers, and Lidya couldn’t help but smile at the thrill of a good fight as she joined Bobby and Altruis, putting her ice barrier up and starting to cast a frostbolt. She could let herself get lost in the rush of blades and spells for a little while, before having to be a responsible leader again.


End file.
